Sibylline Cellar

Whenever trouble brewed in ancient Rome, messengers sped south to the Cumaean Rock, a many-chambered volcanic promontory twelve miles west of Naples. Therein, "hidden far from sight within her sanctuary dark and drear, dwelt the dread Sibyl, whom the Delian seer inspired with soul and wisdom to unfold the things to come"* Complaisant with the Romans' plea the Sibyl would shuffle inscribed leaves, deal them upon her grotto floor, to be construed there by her votaries.

Much of Rome's early history was shaped by the Sibyl's dictates, whose records eventually filled nine Sibylline Books. Tarquin the Proud (534-510 B. C.), last of Rome's legendary Kings, wanted to buy the Books but refused to pay the great sum the Sibyl demanded. She destroyed six of the sacred nine. When he paid the original price for the remaining three and took them to Rome, Romans no longer had to make a long journey to learn what they wanted to do. The Cumaean Sibyl and her grotto lapsed into a legend--until last week.

Dr. Amedeo Maiuri, 46, director of the National Museum in Naples and superintendent of the antiquities preserved in that neighborhood, has long been accustomed to make the 12 mi. trip to the Cumaean Rock and prowl speculatively through its grottoes. To the south side of the Rock are vineyards, whose owners use the caves to store their wine tuns. Something in one of the cellars attracted Dr. Maiuri's attention. He picked at a wall, found that it blocked a trapezium-shaped passageway 20 ft. high, 10 ft. wide at the bottom, 40 ft. long. Lateral tunnels led to the sheer face of the Cumaean Rock. The tunnels admitted light and air.

At the end of the main passageway was a large, natural rock room with three big niches. The niches apparently afforded living quarters for the Sibyl and her servants. The large room must have been her audience chamber. (Virgil refers to its concavity.) From that chamber radiated three small passageways leading to three pools where the Sibyl bathed before going through her leafy mysteries. Dr. Maiuri, delighted by the reality of what for 2,400 years had been deemed legend, stood silent, heard naught but the clop clop of water dripping from the crevices of the Cumaean Rock.

*Virgil's Aencid.

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